Saturday, May 18, 2013

The other day, we were doing some volunteer work downtown and I was partnered with a man from South Korea. Joshua had been in Canada approximately four years and taught the English as a Second Language (ESL) coarse to local immigrants.

Someone came into the room and asked about our progress. "Have you got all your ducks in row?" he asked.

Without even thinking, I replied, "Yep, we are good to go!"

After a few minutes, Joshua asked, "What does this mean, 'ducks in a row'?"

I hadn't really thought about this before, but the question forced me to think of the actually meaning, the origin of the meaning and how strange that it must sound to those unfamiliar with the phrase.

So, we have a Southerner teaching a South Korean how to speak Canadian English. Funny, eh?

Thursday, May 9, 2013

We
had dinner with some friends and a couple said that their son was now
dating a young lady from Texas. When they were going to meet her, they
decided that they had better temper their speech, "...no talking about
politics, nor the NRA..."

I said, "You shouldn't be talking bad about the NRA anyway."

To which the woman replied, "Well, I am a full-fledged Communist so you can go ahead an start hating me..."

I was kind of taken aback by all of this, so as they continued their
conversation and catching up, I was trying to digest all of the info.
"How could a 'communist' be a Christian..." I thought.

Then out of the blue, the woman used the illustration of how you have to lead your aim on a duck before you shoot it.

I said, "Wait a minute! How do you shoot a duck without a gun?" (I was
even ignoring the fact that she assumed that everyone should know how
to hunt ducks.) "How can you talk bad about the NRA if you are a duck
hunter?"